A Message from the PIR Board to the Fellowship

Source: Attachment A of the September 19, 2026 GSR Subcommittee minutes, shared by the chair with GSRs to pass along to their groups.

To the PIR Fellowship,

We want to start by saying thank you. Every subcommittee, every meeting, every set of minutes, every hour spent on outreach, elections, and service work in this organization is done by volunteers. No one on the GSR Subcommittee, the Election Committee, or any other committee is paid. People give their time because they believe in what PIR is building, and that deserves to be said plainly and often.

We are writing today because we want to set a clear expectation for how we treat one another as we do this work.

Disagreement is a normal and healthy part of service work. People will not always agree on how minutes are summarized, how a process is run, or how a decision is made, and raising those disagreements is not just acceptable, it is part of how this organization stays accountable to itself.

Our Traditions give us the framework for how to hold that disagreement well. Tradition One reminds us that our common welfare comes first, that unity in service protects the whole fellowship. Tradition Twelve asks us to place principles before personalities, to keep our focus on the work itself rather than on judging the character of the person doing it. Those aren’t just words for our own recovery; they are meant to guide how we treat one another in service, too.

What is not in keeping with those Traditions is characterizing a volunteer’s reasonable judgment call as unethical, dishonest, or done in bad faith, particularly in a public or group setting, without evidence and without first raising the concern privately and directly with the person involved.

Volunteers are entitled to make reasonable decisions in the course of their service without having their character or integrity questioned for it. If a decision is wrong, it can be discussed, revisited, and corrected. That is a very different thing from accusing the person who made it of acting unethically.

Service, at its heart, is an act of generosity, and that spirit is what sustains this fellowship. When suspicion and distrust take root around the people doing that service, it becomes harder for anyone who wants to give back to feel safe stepping forward.

Going forward, the Board asks that any concerns about how a committee or subcommittee is being run, or about a specific decision, be raised directly with the person or committee involved, or brought to the Board, in keeping with Tradition Twelve, rather than characterized publicly in a way that questions someone’s integrity.

We are all here because we believe in this recovery and in each other, and in the growth that comes from doing it together. Let’s continue to hold that standard, and extend to one another the same principle over personality that we ask of ourselves in our own recovery.

In Loving Service,

The PIR Board